The Results of My Research

So I read these books by Bodie Theone. There were two series and basically one was about the events leading up to WWII and the other about Palestine after WWII. It's fiction but her husband does tons of research for her books and, while it's a narrow view, they are very informative and interesting. (And, when finding that link, I totally realized there's more books than I thought! Oh my WORD, now I have to find them!)

So, because I can never have too much information and apparently have a slight problem with OCD, I started watching a documentary about WWII. It's done in Britain, so it's different than what we learn about in school. We kinda skip over, uhhh, half of it. It's like this: "There was Hitler. He was bad. He tried to take over Europe. There was a lot of fighting in France. Bunch of French cowards ran away. Then there was some bombing in England. Then, PEARL HARBOR. JAPANESE. WE HELPED IN EUROPE. WE WON!" But there's kinda more to it than that, you know? I'm finding out cool things about what happened before the USA got involved and the parts the USA wasn't involved in and it's really a different and broader view.

(Also, because it was made in Britain, sometimes I need subtitles for the people speaking English! The Italians, French, Germans, and Russians who are speaking English as a second language, I can understand. The English guys? They need to visit Henry Higgins. Seriously. "In Hartford, Hsomething, and Hampshire, hardly anything ever happens!" "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.")

Anyways, I'm sure it will surprise you all that I've become a little information obsessed and have been kinda doing research about WWII. It usually starts with me googling one thing, reading about it in Wikipedia, and then clicking on other things that catch my attention in that article. (It's the same reason Mrs. Hearbst would get mad at me in third grade when it took me a really long time to do the dictionary exercises. I would just get so distracted by the other interesting things on the page!) So I was reading something and came across "goosestepping." Now, I knew what goosestepping was, but I couldn't help myself. When I clicked it, I found out that there are some countries that still do it! Of course, this led me to YouTube.

I first found this video first.



Really, there's some major stretching that goes on before that. But extremely impressive. I especially am impressed with the stairs and the flawless transitions.

However, as we previously established, I couldn't stop there. Since that was the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Russia, I looked for a video of our guys doing the same at Arlington. Except they don't walk like that.

OK, remember how there was talking on that Russian video? And there didn't seem to be any reverence? Well, let me tell you, we don't do it that way in the good ol' US of A. No, sir.



Notice the quiet (well, except for the siren in the background).

Wanna know how we keep it that way? The guy asks for it in that last video. Wanna see how we enforce it?

This video won't embed. Watch it first and then the one below.



What cracks me up is that they say "it is requested that all visitors remain behind the chains and rails" and "it is requested that everyone maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect at all times." I'm sorry, requested? There is no arguing with that. None. Zero. I don't know if they would use deadly force to enforce those rules, but they sure sound like they could. With their bare hands.

So to sum up this post, I think this was better than the post I was going to write about the 4th of July. Because that post was gonna make fun of firefighters running away from fireworks that accidentally exploded too soon. Like, umm, on the ground too soon. (And they were complaining about wearing their full turnout gear on such a hot day! All they were doing is lighting a few fireworks, right? lol) But this? This is better. This country's reverence for it's fallen soldiers and the men protecting that reverence makes for a much more patriotic story!

Now, I'm off to make sugar cookies for my class tomorrow. Because I'm insane and don't have enough to do between packing for Dallas and packing to move and doing the laundry that will enable me to pack for Dallas. And water day. Oh, the insanity...